


The Hours of Alice

by pauljessup



Series: Trapped in Reality Triptych [1]
Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Genre: Creepy, Melancholy, all grown up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-26
Updated: 2011-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-15 03:05:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauljessup/pseuds/pauljessup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice wants to go back to Wonderland. She breaks the mirror, but what comes out is not what she expected</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hours of Alice

She looked behind the mirror again. Took it off from the mantel, turned it around in case there was a way of getting in from behind the mirror itself. Nothing. She turned it over, placed her hands on the glass. It was solid, still. Same as before. Just silver polished and polished until it reflected everything in the room. Just a looking glass, nothing more, nothing less.

It hadn’t been a dream. She pushed her hand harder, trying to force it to bend, to let her in, let her back inside. She screamed and screamed and it fogged over with her angry breath. At last she punched and hit and howled. It wouldn’t budge. It wouldn’t break. She threw it on the ground and it bounced. She picked up a chair and swung it down, violently, smashing it, finally.

Shards scattered, spread. Like white diamond dust, coating her from head to toe, leaving tiny cuts barely visible along her skin. She sobbed and cried. Mister Dodgson was gone. And now the mirror he’d left her was gone as well. Smashed into dust. Not even reflecting her face. He had shown her once, long ago, that it was a doorway. They used a willow branch and a pile of woodash, and they smeared it on and walked on through.

But whatever magic had caused that mirror to become a door so many decades ago vanished with the unticking hands of the clock. And now, now, there would be no more doorway. Now she was covered in it, the tiny dust. She inhaled it, exhaled it. When she moved it stung and cut her.

That night she washed and crawled into bed, and she had dreams of a door opening beneath her bed. And Mister Dodgson came out, but he was different. His teeth were too big for his mouth, his eyes too small for his face. His fingers bent backwards, and he crawled along the floor, pulling himself on the floorboards, like his legs were broken or boneless. She woke from the dream screaming and her heart running in circles beneath her skin.  
She would never sleep easy again.


End file.
